Customer Advocacy at SAP - 04/2020

12 months ago, I met Linda de Winter at the Swiss Post and we had a lively discussion around the topic of working together (Swiss Post and SAP), learnings from the past, and what we would like to do different in the future.

We both saw it as an opportunity to look beyond "What does the Swiss Post need, and what does SAP have to offer." and crafted a vision for a true partnership.

How can we get out of the very transactional sales cycle into a long-term relationship, based on a joint Roadmap and aligned Enterprise Architecture? How can we solve business needs by better using what we already have, and improving the status quo without trying to boil the ocean. What do we need in terms of setup to be jointly succesfull and achieve lasting results. Go-Lives are as important as Renewals, but they are only a point in time. What matters is who will help you when things are not going according to plan. Below is a rundown of what we jointly decided to establish - the ground rules of our engagement.

But first, lets look at meaning of customer advocacy according to cambridge.org

A way of doing business which sees it as very important to keep customers happy by providing what they want and dealing with their problems, even if it is difficult or expensive to do so:

When you're measuring how good a company's customer advocacy culture is, the first question to ask is whether you would recommend the company to a friend.

What do we mean by Customer Advocacy?

Customer Advocacy is a bi-directional engagement to build a trusted, strategic partnership with your customer and their employees. Done well, customer advocacy is a way to build long-term customer partnerships that transform the relationship from software vendor to strategic partner. In other words, in customer advocacy, the primary focus is not on short-term sales but on the long-term relationship of achieving joint goals in the sense of business performance.

What is the objective of the Customer Advocate?

The basic objective of the Customer Advocate is to help accelerate time to value and to advocate for the customer within SAP. To that end, the Customer Advocate will establish an ongoing CXO value governance to track plan vs. actual and mitigate business & IT risks.

What kind of skills does the Customer Advocate need?

The ideal Customer Advocate is a person that is passionate about the customer and emotionally invested in the Systems, Applications and Products. A resourceful person who can quickly pull in executive leadership and leverage experience from other Fortune 500 customers. The Customer Advocate will drive long term, outcome-based implementation value plans to achieve the customer business objectives. For that reason, the Customer Advocate will support the Account Manager to identify opportunities to expand SAP’s footprint and ensures seamless consumption & adoption across all Lines of Business. 

What are the four (key) pillars of Customer Advocacy?

Customer Advocacy is the ultimate relationship with customers, employees and partners that evolves and grows over time. Customer Advocacy is a journey based on four key pillars: people, governance, IT & Business and knowledge & expertise.

1. People: The engagement needs to be transparent in order to build the trusted relationships necessary in a customer-centric culture. We engage by building long term customer relationships that are aligned to the customer’s buying journey end-to-end.

2. Governance: Agree on the governance, goals, tracking & measuring the customer interactions. Determine target values for each of the KPIs, based on target architecture, value roadmap, and business case. Follow-up via the Quarterly Business Review (QBR) to provide insights into the overall program value.

3. IT and Business: When it comes to technology and the shift to the cloud, the security aspect is of utmost importance. It is either a driver or blocker in the area of technology for all large companies and especially for a public company such as Swiss Post and must be given high attention by the supplier. Technology is there to make business processes efficient and to handle them safely.

4. SAP knowledge and industry expertise: Customer advocacy is a holistic function that spans across the entire customer organization. Therefore, the customer advocate must be able to marry the detailed business requirements with software capabilities across the entire organization.

The overall goal of "Customer Advocacy" is to build deep customer relationships, exceeding customer expectations and enabling customers to transform their business.

BIG "Thank You" to Linda for having an open mind, giving honest feedback and having the desire to evolve the partnership.

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